What to remember in 2023

• A €100 M fund-raising operation with ICG

• Sales of nearly €89 million, , up 16% on 2022

  • Solar France: €47.2m
  • Solar International: €29.9m
  • Biogas France: €11.2 M

• 14% of Group sales from direct sales, vs. 11% in 2022

• A total installed capacity of 740 MW, compared with 640 MW at the end of 2002, an increase of 16%.

  • Solar France: 455 photovoltaic plants in operation and 12 under construction,for a total capacity of 327 MWC
  • International solar: 44 photovoltaic plants in operation and 36 under construction, for a total capacity of 403 MWC
  • Biogas France: 7 biogas plants in operation and 4 under construction, with a capacity of 9 MW, producing 220 GWh/year.

• 237,000 tonnes of biowaste secured for its methanization digestion units, vs. 160,000 in 2022.

• A secured portfolio that has more than doubled compared with end 2022: 2.9 GW at 12/31/23, thanks in particular to solar activities in Chile (+745 MW), the United States (+406 MW) and France (+650 MW, including nearly 350 MW in M&A).

• 410 employees by the end of 2023, with over 100 new hires planned for 2024, driven by an integrated approach to expertise across the entire value chain. Nearly 40% of new hires will be dedicated to the biogas business and 20% to the solar business in France.

• A proactive impact approach:

  • Mission-driven company since 2022,
  • B Corp label in 2023,
  • Implementation of 13 non-financial performance indicators,
  • Launch of the CVE Foundation, “Donner l’énergie d’agir”, housed at the Fondation de France,
  • Member of the “Climate Dividend” pilot initiative created by Team for The Planet and Ademe.

• Internationally :

  • Launch of CVE España in early 2023, with 24 MWp of projects already under construction, and a strategy focused on PPAs and market sales.

In 2024, an ambitious roadmap

New offers to increase the decarbonization of uses

Transport and industry alone account for 60% of greenhouse gas emissions in France. To help these sectors with their energy transition, CVE is developing :

  • Solutions for decarbonizing industrial heat through BPAs (Biomethane Purchase Agreements) or on-site hydrogen production;
  • A Hydrogen offer for heavy and captive mobility, and another for decarbonizing diffuse industry. CVE is also studying the valorization of its biogas into BioGNV fuel;
  • On the solar side, a new innovative offer is currently being studied, which would combine the production of green electricity via parking lot shading with charging stations for electric vehicles.
  • Finally, CVE is extending the scope of its agrivoltaic offerings beyond solutions for sheep, cattle and pig farming, with a prototype for fruit growing.

« France is committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. To get there, we need to take a new step and massively decarbonize the sectors that emit the most greenhouse gases. Our solutions are winning over a growing number of companies, because they offer the triple advantage of stabilizing their energy bills over the long term, securing their supplies and improving their environmental footprint”, points out Pierre de Froidefond, co-president of CVE.

In France, continued momentum in solar and biogas activities

Solar business: focus on agrivoltaics and flexible self-consumption

  • Agrivoltaics is the practice of combining agriculture and solar energy production, enabling farmers to optimize the use of their land while reducing their carbon footprint. In this segment, CVE is enjoying good momentum, with 6 projects under development for agrivoltaics on livestock farms, totalling 125 MW. In particular, the Group is working with INRAe to define best practices for its solutions for sheep farming, which is becoming increasingly popular in France.
  • In 2024, the Group is also betting heavily on its flexible photovoltaic self-consumption offer, which enables companies to produce part of the energy required for their business on site, and to recover their land if necessary after a few years, thanks to photovoltaic structures installed and ballasted on the ground, which can be easily dismantled. By 2023, CVE had completed around ten self-consumption projects, for Laboratoires Boiron, the Cheval public works group, MSA and Color Foods.

Biogas activity: continue to deploy methanization units in the region

  • Now France’s leading independent producer of biomethane, CVE has a portfolio of projects under development of over 1,500 GWh/year in France. On the horizo inn 2030, the group aims to increase its green gas production by a factor of 6, to 1.7 TWh, by strengthening its upstream biowaste collection and processing activities, which supply its various units. This year, CVE will open four Ecovalim franchises dedicated to bio-waste collection.

« We too often forget that decarbonizing our economy also involves decarbonizing gas, which accounts for 20% of final energy consumption in France. Our aim is to have around sixty sites in operation within the next five years,”explains Pierre de Froidefond. We will always give priority to medium-sized short-circuit projects (25 GWh/year, for a local collection of 30,000 tonnes of waste), located in business or agricultural zones. It’s a win-win model.

 

bioCO2, a new growth driver for the Group

In 2024, CVE will invest in the valorization of its first biogenic CO2 molecules produced at its Equimeth site in the Paris region. This project, which substitutes fossil CO2 with biogenic CO2, is supported by “France Relance”. Biogenic CO2 can be used in fields as varied as industry and transport

 

Internationally, more projects combining solar power and storage, and a model for direct sales through short distribution channels

• In North America, Halo, CVE’s Community Solar offering that enables local residents to benefit from reduced rates for green electricity generated locally by CVE’s solar farms, is being rolled out in New York State. 3 projects were connected to the grid in 2023. 8 more are currently under construction in the state. The Group has strong ambitions on the continent, with plans to reach a fleet of over 220 MW by 2025.

• In Spain, the Group is continuing to expand its solar business, with 6 solar plants under construction (23 MW in total) in Aragon, scheduled for commissioning in mid-2024, and 130 MWp of projects under development. Electricity from these parks will be sold partly via PPAs and partly on the market. CVE España is also relying on the development of the CVE biogas model, given the promising potential of methanization in the region.

• In Chile, CVE has a significant portfolio of PMGD projects (ground-mounted solar farms of less than 10 MWp, connected to the distribution grid). As regulations have evolved towards the segmentation of sales prices by hourly blocks, CVE is studying storage solutions for arbitrage purposes. In addition, the first PPAs are planned for larger projects (medium or utility scale).

• In South Africa, where businesses are suffering from rising electricity prices and power cuts (load shedding), direct sales of solar energy coupled with storage offer a sustainable solution. At the end of 2023, CVE signed a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Saint-Gobain, guaranteeing access to 140 GWh of solar power over 20 years. This PPA should cover around 35% of the electricity needs of Saint-Gobain’s 4 main industrial sites in the country, which manufacture plasterboard and mortar.

« Storage is experiencing very strong growth worldwide, because it provides power grids with the flexibility they need to cope with the increasing power of renewables. Business models are geared to different uses in different parts of the world: capacity reserve, system services, arbitrage. CVE is already developing storage projects coupled with our solar power plants in South Africa and the United States. In 2024, we intend to accelerate the development of storage in our international subsidiaries, where the market is mature, but also in France around innovative models for coupling our solar power plants with battery storage, and in a few years’ time using hydrogen, » emphasizes Pierre de Froidefond.